@keyframes

The @keyframes CSS at-rule controls the intermediate steps in a CSS animation sequence by defining styles for keyframes (or waypoints) along the animation sequence. This gives more control over the intermediate steps of the animation sequence than transitions.

JavaScript can access the @keyframes at-rule with the CSS object model interface CSSKeyframesRule.

To use keyframes, create a @keyframes rule with a name that is then used by the animation-name property to match an animation to its keyframe declaration. Each @keyframes rule contains a style list of keyframe selectors, which specify percentages along the animation when the keyframe occurs, and a block containing the styles for that keyframe.

You can list the keyframe percentages in any order; they will be handled in the order they should occur.

Valid keyframe lists

If a keyframe rule doesn't specify the start or end states of the animation (that is, 0%/from and 100%/to, browsers will use the element's existing styles for the start/end states. This can be used to animate an element from its initial state and back.

Properties that can't be animated in keyframe rules are ignored, but supported properties will still be animated.

Resolving duplicates

If multiple keyframe sets exist for a given name, the last one encountered by the parser is used. @keyframes rules don't cascade, so animations never derive keyframes from more than one rule set.

If a given animation time offset is duplicated, the last keyframe in the @keyframes rule for that percentage is used for that frame. There's no cascading within a @keyframes rule if multiple keyframes specify the same percentage values.

When properties are left out of some keyframes

Properties that aren't specified in every keyframe are interpolated if possible — properties that can't be interpolated are dropped from the animation. For example:

In this example, at the 50% keyframe, the value used is top: 10px and all other values at this keyframe are ignored.

Cascading keyframes are supported starting in Firefox 14. For the example above, it means that at the 50% keyframe, the value left: 20px will be considered. This is not defined in the specification yet, but it is being discussed.